World's most vandalized tourist attractions

Tourists behaving badly is nothing new, as these famous incidents of vandalism prove. Some of the world's best known art and landmarks have all suffered vandalism at the hands of tourists over the years.After years of various species of trees being cut down on New Zealand's One Tree Hill, a lone pine tree stood next to the obelisk. In 2000, it too was cut down, making One Tree Hill, "No Tree Hill." The government has yet to replant any trees on the hill due to uncertainty over the species to be planted. (Wikipedia)

In 2007, five people, thought to be intoxicated, broke into Paris' Musee D'Orsay and punched holes through Claude Monet's "Le Pont d'Argenteuil" painting.

Michelangelo's "Pieta" is now behind bullet-proof acrylic glass after a mentally disturbed geologist attacked the Virgin with a hammer and shouted "I Am Jesus" in 1972. In 1991, a vandal attacked Michelangelo's "David" statue, damaging its toes with a hammer before being restrained. (Wikipedia/Stanislav Traykov)

Tourists have taken to writing soccer chants and the names of their love interests on the walls of Peru's famed Sacsayhuaman fortress. Sacsayhuaman was built in the 1100s. (Wikipedia/Håkan Svensson)

Marko Kulju, a Finnish tourist, tore the earlobe off one of the Moai statues, carved of volcanic rock, on Easter Island in March 2008. The damage is seen in the above photo. Kulju faces seven years in prison and a fine of nearly $20,000. (Postmedia Network)

Unknown vandals have previously splashed an oily substance over names on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. in 2007. This covered or corroded the names of many people who died in the war. (Fotolia)

Visitors to England's Stonehenge are kept at bay by ropes. Tourists were once able to approach the stones, but after many began chipping away bits of the rock for souvenirs, protective ropes were erected around Stonehenge. (iStock Photo)

Jim Morrison's grave at the Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris is splashed with graffiti by admirers. A statue of the late singer was placed by the grave, but stolen, as was a flat shield Paris officials put over the grave. (Postmedia Network)

The Little Mermaid statue, an icon of Copenhagen, Denmark, has been vandalized numerous times. The statue's head and arm have been sawed off, it's been blasted off the rock, possibly with dynamite, and has been covered in various shades of paint. Each time, the statue has been restored. (Fotolia)

Ding Jinhao, a teenager from China, was shamed internationally on social media after he carved his name into the face of a 3,500-year-old temple relic he recently visited as a tourist in Egypt. Ding's parents were forced to contact local media and apologize for their son, admitting that they hadn't properly educated their child and pleading for society to give him a chance. (Kongyouwuyi/Newspoint)

Germany has promised to strengthen security at the Holocaust Memorial in the heart of Berlin after a video published on the Internet showed a man urinating and people launching fireworks from its grey concrete structure on New Year’s Eve.

"The incidents are outrageous and to be deplored," German Culture Minister Monika Gruetters was quoted as saying by Bild newspaper on Thursday.

A foundation that supervises the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, which was opened in 2005, will talk to police and arrange tighter security, Gruetters said.

On New Year’s Eve, when hundreds of thousands of tourists and locals gather to celebrate at the nearby Brandenburg Gate, a man was filmed urinating from the top of one of the 2,711 giant concrete slabs that constitute the Holocaust Memorial.

Although the monument, which is next door to the U.S. embassy, has in the past been vandalized by neo-Nazis who daubed it with swastikas, police did not see a political motive behind the latest incidents.

"The behavior is disgusting, disorderly, stupid – but it does not constitute a crime," police spokesman Thomas Neuendorf said, adding that they would not press charges.

Under German law, urinating in public can only be punished with a fine at most.

The memorial, which is not fenced in, is usually patrolled by two members of the foundation that looks after it, who were reinforced by four more people on New Year’s Eve.

The memorial with its "Field of Stelae" honors the six million Jews who were murdered by the Nazis and was designed by American architect Peter Eisenman.

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